Unemployment Insurance
Modernization

UI Modernization Project Status

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) is undertaking a major step forward to better serve employees and employers through modernization of the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system. DWD began its benefits modernization projects in 2021, using the "iterative process" defined by incremental, flexible, and feedback-driven improvements.

One of the first iterative modernization projects was a cloud-based Customer Call Center that provided an omnichannel web-based call delivery system that provides greater flexibility for agents in taking and responding to calls and in monitoring those calls. Since that time, DWD has undertaken various projects to modernize the suite of Wisconsin’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) systems, including:

• Fraud screen tool advancements;
• A cloud-based omni-channel contact center;
• Virtual customer service agents that are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to answer common questions in English and Spanish;
• An online chatbot that can answer common questions in English, Spanish, and Hmong;
• Fraud detection through LexisNexis and National Association of State Workforce Agencies' Integrity Data Hub;
• Secure online messaging with adjudicators;
• Translation of the UI application into plain language;
• A dashboard showing initial and weekly claims by county;
• An adjudication scheduler;
• ID Proofing;
• Knowledge base tool implementation; and
• Accessibility assessments

In May 2025, DWD's modernization projects suffered a setback when the U.S. Department of Labor (U.S. DOL) terminated its grants to modernize the employer portal, address technical limitations of the current system, and expand opportunities for communication between employers and the state. The modern employer portal would improve communication between DWD and its customers for tax and wage reporting, employer information and support, responding to submitted unemployment insurance claims verification, and appeal activities all in a secure setting.

As a result of the termination of the grants by U.S. DOL, DWD had to rescale its modernization efforts to reflect funding availability. DWD will continue to modernize the benefits system and the employer portal system, but it will be unable to migrate to a cloud-based IT system. The summaries of quarterly work below provide further detail of DWD's modernization efforts.

Modernization is a continuous journey dependent on perpetual evolution to meet the ever-changing needs of the program. This means that there will always be more to improve and refine to stay current. DWD is looking forward to continuing these efforts and implementing innovative solutions.

Project Updates

Fourth Quarter 2025

DWD is focusing on converting to modern code “on premise” rather than in the cloud. DWD will continue to develop the monetaries and other modules on premise with a focus on modern coding language that is more flexible and adaptable. The work on the rescaled projects for this quarter include:

1. Modernization of benefits systems:
   Manual Processing Reduction: This project takes claims the legacy system can't handle through a modern module and returns the answer to the legacy system to accelerate the claim determination process. DWD identified the manual processed claims that can best be managed by an automated process. This prevents the accumulation of claims requiring hours of manual analysis and processing. The validation and calculation steps for this process continue.
   
   Modern Coding Language: This effort modernizes and makes consistent the code for three applications to increase features and improve efficiency. DWD has awarded a contract for technical resources to assist with upgrading the coding language to support the outward facing Claimant Portal and the internal facing Worker Portal and UIBNET, which are used by staff to process claims.
2. Modernization of Employer Portal:
   DWD has awarded a contract for the work to upgrade the coding language that supports the existing Employer Portal and to outline the screen design for the new solution based on human centered design principles. During this quarter, DWD completed code to allow electronic forms to capture information directly from employers, developed secure messaging functionality for employers to exchange messages with DWD staff, and automated the addition of due dates for required items as they are sent out to the employer. DWD also made improvements to the Employer Portal registration design to improve the content and order of the questions and streamlined the document upload process. Finally, DWD began integrating MyWisconsin ID into the Employer Portal application, which will serve to improve secure entry to the portal.
3. Further Enhancements:
   UI Account Number Expansion: This work increases the number of employers that can participate in UI and pay their taxes associated with it by fixing current system limitations. DWD has no update on this project for this quarter.

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